


To Say Good-bye

by Sera_Clay



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-09 20:29:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3263330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sera_Clay/pseuds/Sera_Clay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lizzington, angst, romance, one shot</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Say Good-bye

Raymond Reddington sits sipping a glass of wine at an outdoor cafe table on a street corner in Manhattan, watching the surging tide of evening commuters. Thinking about Elizabeth Keen.

She has no close family left. She clearly wants him to play the role of her father, or her uncle. And Red can't imagine a small town girl like Liz contemplating incest, even for a moment.

Liz wants Red in her life. She's finally admitted that, has chosen not send him away. But she doesn't want Red, not the way he wants her.

So he confines himself to small paternal gestures, holding her hand, touching her arm. He kisses her hair in comfort, not her face. Always watching for some spark of response. Some change in her that would allow him to respond with caresses, as he longs to do.

But nothing. 

Their relationship has evolved. Liz comes to him now when she's hurt or confused. Even, on a few treasured nights in the last six months, when she was lonely. He took her to dinner, dancing, late night jazz.

He can always make her laugh, even if some of his stories also appall her.

They're captured or killed so many blacklisters together, they almost have a secret language now, telegraphic gestures with their eyes, with their words. They can sometimes finish each others' sentences, which tends to make Harold Cooper roll his eyes and Agent Ressler scowl.

It's time for the last act of his singular drama.

Based on the timetable he established for this eventuality, Dembe has been urging him to leave for the last three days, but Liz has had a cold. And he wants to see her one last time.

He spots her the second she emerges from the subway. Her long dark hair is coiled neatly on the back of her head in a bun, but she's wearing a loose black coat over a short dress and heels, rather than her customary work suit.

She must have changed before leaving her office to meet him.

"Red!"

Her face lights up when she catches sight of him. It's one of his favorite sights in the whole world, her wide blue eyes, her shining smile. She reaches one hand up and waves at him. As though she didn't see him watching her, even if no more than his gaze moves in response to her arrival.

"Lizzie."

He rises and holds her chair for her, at his side rather than opposite him. They both want to sit facing the street. His thumb brushes the back of her coat as he seats her.

Lambswool, not cashmere. She deserves cashmere.

"So, what are we doing tonight?" Liz asks. She reaches over and lifts his wine glass from the table, takes a sip. Makes a face. "Not up to your usual standard."

"Which I would have told you if you asked before tasting it," he responds in an amused tone. He takes the glass from her hand and tilts it, peering at the wine. Uses the opportunity to turn the glass so he can sip from the exact spot her lips touched.

He shakes his head, tilts the glass again.

"It was over-chilled when it arrived. Sometimes time doesn't help."

And isn't that the cold, bloody truth of this evening?

She looks sideways at him, her pale brow furrowed.

"Is something wrong, Red?"

She unbuttons the top button of her coat, revealing the high, mandarin collar of his favorite of her few evening dresses, ruby silk with an almost indecent slit up the back of the short, tight skirt.

He missed whole sections of a very exclusive private concert the last time she wore it out with him, trying to imagine plausible ways to convince her to bend forward and pick something up from the floor while he was standing behind her.

But Liz has learned to watch her back. 

Red shrugs, drains the glass. Sets it down.

He's practiced the words in his mind, even tried speaking them aloud while staring at himself in the mirror with the bathroom door closed and locked. Red just felt old and foolish, and no matter what expression he arranged on his drawn, weary face, the words still sounded so cold.

"Do you have to go away again?"

Liz reaches out, covers his right hand with her left. Her small fingers are so warm.

"Why do you ask that, Lizzie?" Red answers, stalling for time. Every nerve ending in his body seems to be connected to his right hand at this moment. She is rarely the one to touch him, on the few occasions they touch.

The last time she touched him, more than a month ago, he actually flinched, the pleasure was so intense. He had a deep scratch on one forearm, his sleeve rolled up to treat it, and she ran her cupped right hand up from his wrist to his elbow to feel for heat or swelling, her touch setting the nerves at the base of each hair she ruffled alight with electricity.

Liz shrugs back at him. He's noticed her gestures becoming more decisive as she spends extended periods of time with him, even mirrors him. She's doing a head tilt now too, which he would usually think is so adorable, except that it means he needs to answer her question.

"We both hate it when we're apart," she says quietly.

We. 

How his starved, lonely heart aches when he hears that word.

"Red?"

This meeting was a mistake. He can't force the words out.

He should have just written her a letter. Given her some gracious, generous farewell to remember him by. Something to tuck away, to show her future husband, future children. Liz deserves such a rich, full life.

Red stares down at their joined hands. 

Liz curls her fingers, squeezes his hand, but doesn't let go.

"Why don't you ever invite me on these trips?" she asks softly.

As she raises her eyes to his, Red can't erase the reflexive look of horror from his face fast enough. 

She needs to be safely on the other side of the world, to have informed the task force not to expect his return. To be seen as a discarded pawn, no leverage on him at all.

Liz releases his hand.

"So, when will you be back?"

Her tone is cold.

He'd normally respond with similar coldness, allow her a bit of a fight. The high color in her cheeks when she's angry is the closest he'll ever get to seeing her face transfigured by passion. But not today.

His voice comes out louder than he wants, in a tone he never uses with her. With anyone.

"Lizzie ..."

Red holds out his hand in entreaty, palm up. Liz stares at him, slowly sets her hand back in his.

"Red? I think you're scaring me."

He swallows hard. This is the perfect moment. It's as if she already knows what he's going to say.

He's eliminated most of his rivals. His organization is strong. The cartel is vulnerable. It's time to use the Fulcrum. Although he can't expect to survive.

"You need to tell me what's wrong. Whatever it is, we can face it together."

She gives his hand another squeeze.

"Please don't shut me out. Let me help."

Let her help? Liz has already helped him, more than she can ever know. Far beyond whatever the FBI has contributed towards his cause, her existence is all that has given him the courage and the strength to go on.

Even if she will never be his.

"Damn it, Red. Talk to me!"

He thinks she's going to shake him, prepares to sneer about unnecessary violence as she grabs the broad lapels of his overcoat.

Liz pulls him close, tilts her head further to the side, and fits her open mouth to his.

Kisses him in a thoroughly undaughterly way.

His hands come up to clutch at her, hold her tight against him. He's dragged her out of her chair, and he's moving his chair, his legs, sideways to pull her onto his lap without even thinking.

Liz barely lifts her mouth from his to take a gasping breath, then attacks him once again. They're both making sounds, Red is sure of that, but such instinctive, responsive little moans that he's not sure which are hers and which are his. He feels his entire thinking mind vanishing as he becomes all feeling, all desire.

"Sir! Madam!" It's the waiter.

Oh god. They're mauling each other in a public cafe.

Grabbing his hat, Red tosses a twenty on the table, tucks Lizzie against his side and rushes her away from the cafe. Two doors down there's a locked and chained record store. He pulls her into the overhang of the doorway, pushes her up against the metal security door as she winds herself around him.

"Oh Red!"

She's kissing him back, tugging at the buttons of her coat, then his.

"Lizzie! Beloved, perfect, precious..."

Red praises her between hungry, searching kisses. Liz sets her shoulder to his chest, turning them so his back is pressed against the door. She leans against him as her hands explore his body through his clothes.

"Not here ..." he manages to get out, as her hands find his belt buckle. "Hotel?"

Liz draws back, breathing hard.

"I don't know if I can wait for a hotel," she confesses.

Red laughs a little shakily.

They stare at each other.

"Don't leave, Red. Don't ever leave me again."

Three hours.

His jet is leaving in three hours.

It's Manhattan. There has to be a hotel somewhere around here. Red can't think of one.

"Red?"

Liz presses her body tight against him again, pushes his back against the door, puts her warm hands on either side of his face.

"I mean it, Red. I have been waiting so long for you ..."

Startled, craving, blood roaring in his ears until the street noise all but vanishes, he gives her the truth.

"Lizzie, I'm the one who has been waiting..."

She raises her fist, punches him on his left shoulder, just beneath his collarbone. Gently, because she's knows he's still healing from that knife wound more than two months before.

"You've been treating me like an uncle!" she exclaims, leaning forward to kiss him once again. 

Her mouth tastes so sweet and fresh. No, she's somehow got one hand down his pants without undoing his belt, and her kisses are sharp and wicked. Her breath tastes of cinnamon and her small body curves against him as if she's trying to rub every possible inch of herself against him.

Too much, after so long. So many long years alone.

He wants to bite her, slap her, fling her away. Clutch her and never let her go.

Instead, Red surrenders himself to the touch of her hands. Lifts his chin and opens his mouth wider and allows her to love him. Just love him.

In this moment, that's all he truly wants in the world, his astonished body melting, alive once more, his heart somehow made whole, even the frenzied racket of his desire, begging like a tormented animal for release. And her love.

Liz stops kissing him long enough to trace his jaw up to his ear with wet little bites.

"Promise you're never going to leave me, Red," she whispers.

He's never lied to her yet. He's not going to start now.

He's leaning against a scarred metal door, the warmth of Liz pressed against him, trying to shut out the roar of rush hour traffic and pedestrians hurrying past on the sidewalk. Two very different worlds. He has to choose. Only one can become reality.

Red raises his right hand to her face, notices with an odd sense of detachment that his hand shaking, just a little. Traces the curve of her brow, smooths a few loose dark hairs away from her face. Her bun is coming unpinned, she's breathing hard, her lipstick is smeared, and her silk dress is riding up her thighs. Liz already looks rather debauched.

She looks gorgeous.

"I'll stay as long as you want me," Red promises. 

The Fulcrum can wait. None of his plans are irreversible, yet.

Her blue eyes cling to his, luminous with joy. 

"Hotel?" she whispers.

"Oh yes," he whispers back.


End file.
